By Matt Saunders

In this article we are going to talk about how the humble webcam has managed to revolutionize international business by providing a clear and valuable means of connecting people across the world.

Starting life in the late nineties, the webcam was used mostly for affluent family members to stay connected online. It was troublesome back then; internet connections were slow and often dropped, and webcam technologies were very modest – you were lucky if you had a constant and reasonably smooth stream that wasn’t pixellated.

If we spin the clock forward 10-12 years you can see how far webcams have come. It is absolutely normal for even high quality webcams to sell for under $50, and even many laptop computers have them built in by design.

What are the benefits of webcams to business?

We all understand how webcams can be used for personal reasons – mostly to keep in touch with friends and family – but they can be applied much more effectively to business usage.

Modern day webcams can be used for:

* Multi-user conferences

* Streaming high quality video and sound

* Recording unlimited video

Large organisations which operate in remote locations can easily be brought together using video conference technology and webcams. This helps to boost productivity and by allowing multiple users to connect via the internet, it is a much more cost effective solution than using the telephone.

What costs are involved?

Setting up a network of webcams for your employees is actually a lot less expensive than you may at first think. The webcams themselves are cheap – around $60-$80 and conferencing software is also very accessible – in fact if you shop around there are probably quite a few free applications that you can use.

When you consider how productive meetings can be – it is probably better to ask what are the costs of NOT holding web conferences?

Conclusion

Does your business need webcam technology to help it operate? Well only you can know for sure, but to help you we have put together a small list of points which may be indicative of your company benefitting from online meetings.

* You have employees which work remotely

* You have long distance clients

* You benefit from community discussions designed to build new business

Remember that the benefits of working largely online become apparent when you look at the potential of what is out there. If you are a small local business, this is fine, but consider that we a moving further toward working remotely all the time so it might be worth putting your business on the right track sooner rather than later.